Jess and the Old Man
by musicalfreak22
Summary: This is an idea I got after I read The Old Man and the Sea. Just a little fluff. AU.


**_Hi! This is an idea I got after I read The Old Man and the Sea for one of my classes. Hope you'll like it._**

Jess and the Old Man

Jess Mariano was sitting on a bench in a park, reading _The Old Man and the Sea_ once more when a woman sat down beside him, handing him a to-go cup of coffee. Jess took it and looked up at his wife of just a few weeks, Lorelei Leigh Mariano, Better known as Rory Mariano now.

"Thanks" he told her before giving her a light kiss on the lips.

"No problem" she answered, smiling.

He got back to his book, taking a sip of his coffee.

"What are you reading?" she asked and he held up his book so that she could see the title.

"_The Old Man and the Sea_", she read. "Hemingway. Again?"

"What?" he inquired, looking up at her.

"Nothing." She shrugged.

He looked at her curiously, before turning back to the book. She took a sip of her coffee and got out her own book.

"Hey Jess?" she asked after a moment, looking away from her book to look at him.

"Hmm?" came his reply.

"There's something I was wondering."

"What is it?"

"Well...why do you like so much that one book of Hemingway?"

"You mean _The Old Man and the Sea_?"

She nodded. He smiled lightly.

"You would know if you had read it" he answered.

"You know I've never been able to get through one of Hemingway's books. They put me asleep. Seriously Jess, why?"

He sighed, thinking of a way to explain.

"Well" he begun, "I think I identified myself to the main character, Santiago, the old man, as well as the marlin he fights to have for three days. The old has fought all his life to have what he wanted. He fought to keep the kid with him, which he failed into, he fought to continue fishing even if he couldn't take anything anymore, and he fought with the marlin as if it was the last thing left to do before his death."

He stopped for a moment, thinking.

"The marlin is also a character I could identify myself to 'cause...I don't know...it fights to stay alive."

"Why did you identify yourself to the main character?"

"Because I've fought to have what I wanted too. I've fought to get a place in this world. Before we met, I was just a little jerk that didn't want to be recognized, but I hated it. Quite confusing, isn't it?"

Rory nodded lightly.

"There's just one thing though..." she said after a moment. "Maybe I'll seem dumb, but...what did you fight to have? I know you fought, literally, to get some respect in Stars Hollow, but what else?"

Jess smiled slightly, taking one of her hands.

"I fought to have you. When I first got to Stars Hollow, I thought I had finally got to hell. The only thing I wanted was to get out of there, but once I met you...I thought that if I were trapped in that hole, I at least had something to hold on to. When we got together, at first, I was in heaven, but somewhere along the way, I panicked. You were going to Yale, an I couldn't even finish high school."

Rory opened her mouth to say something, but Jess stopped her.

"I know Ror, I know. But try to be in my place at that moment. How do you think I was feeling? I had gone back to that feeling that I was less than nothing. I couldn't take you to prom, and I had broken the promise I had made to Luke. Get out of town was my only way out, the only way I could think of to not get any more humiliated."

He took a deep breath before continuing.

"After that, you remember a phone call on your graduation day?"

Rory nodded.

"I knew it was you" she added.

"Yeah...I wanted so much to tell you I was sorry, but no sound was coming out. I didn't have the courage to 'cause in my mind, I had disappointed you so much that you wouldn't even have wanted to listen to me. But when you said you may have loved me...hell...I felt like an asshole, an idiot. I was too self-centered to think that maybe I wasn't the only one to be hurt. But I realized that too late. As well as somethin else."

"And what is it?"

"I realized I was in love with you. And that leads to my first visit in Stars Hollow, when I went to get my car. I had told myself that I had to do everything to avoid seeing you, because I knew that if I were to see you, I would do something stupid. And telling someone you love her to run away just after IS something stupid."

"Yes. Very stupid. You would have known, if you had stayed, that I was still in love with you too. I haven't stopped thinking about you since the day you left. I was definitely pining for you." Rory agreed.

Jess stroked her cheek gently.

"Would you please let me finish now?" he asked her softly.

She smiled and nodded.

"Thank you. So that night, I went to New York. I stayed there for a while, sleeping in my car for the first few days, until I found an ad that three guys were looking for a fourth roommate to help them pay the rent. So I gave them a call and lived with them for a while. One day, Luke showed up to tell me my mother was getting married. At first, I didn't want to go. My mother and I have never been very close but I thought it through and thought that maybe it would be the occasion for me to show you that you could trust me, that I had changed, that I still loved you. I just didn't know how. Before I left Stars Hollow, Luke gave me his self-help books, you know, something like _Love for Dummies_."

Rory laughes lightly.

"Yeah. That was my first reaction, but Luke gave them to me never the less, saying that I had nothing to lose. Sure, nothing beside my pride. But I became curious and gave it a shot and everything in there, I realized, could be really helpful. So that's when I showed up at your dorm. Everything I wanted to tell you was clear in my head until I saw Dean. It all came out wrong. I didn't mean to ask you to run away with me. All I wanted was to be with you. So when you said no, I was mad. First I was mad at you for pushing me away. But I realized later it was my fault. I had to be mad at myself because I let my hatred for Dean blinded me. That's when I realized that maybe I wasn't reliable enough yet for you. I had to do something of myself. That's when my trip to Philadelphia started. I had signed up in a few schools for night classes and the only one that took me was one in Philly. So I got my GED and filled in and admission form for Philadelphia's university in English. I completed my degree in about a year and a half and found my job at Truncheon. You know what happened next."

Rory nodded.

"What does it have to do with _The Old Man and the Sea_?" she asked after a moment.

"Well, I thought you would see the similarities between the old man and me."

"I can't tell for a fact that there are similarities, becasue I never got to finish the book. But now that you gave me a new perspective, I think I'll give Hemingway another shot."

Jess smiled.

"I knew I would somehow end up convincing you to read it again" he said.

"Oh, shut up."

He laughed, pulling her to him by the waist to leave a kiss on the crown of her head.

The end 


End file.
